Alys & Fran's Book Blog: A Christian Historical Romance

I read this because it was recommended by Tashapolis on YouTube and she described it as "really good" and the ratings across all markets were also pretty unanimous about it being "really good". This historical romance is based of the Book of Hosea from the Hebrew Bible.

The first half of the book, I'm not gonna lie, was so difficult for me to get through. I'll try not to spoil too much but the main character Sarah goes through so much hardship that it's almost unbearable to read from her eyes. I guess that would be my only warning: this isn't lighthearted! Very different from the rom-com novels I'm used to. I dreaded having to go back into this world just to dive back into her anguish and unfortunate circumstances. Like if I was having a bad day, I'd try to read this book and my day would just turn even more sorrowful because of what Sarah has to go through.

Anyway, for some reason, I convinced myself to keep going ('some reason' being that this was actually really hard to obtain from the library and also because I wanted to see why it had gotten such good ratings). The second half of the book was great. I think it totally made up for the first half and by the end, you understand as a reader why all that bad stuff had to happen, not unlike the feeling of looking back at your own bad experiences and accepting it was necessary to have gone through them. The conclusion and character arc was powerful enough to resolve everything into a satisfying read. It's a gigantic complex arc for character development and along with the characters, you feel every ounce of guilt, hate, self-loathe they feel, but also patience, faith, redemption, and serenity.

I keep repeating it but the characters are really well done. Francine Rivers is a master at working with character flaws and letting that be the groundwork for relatability within the audience. Every character in here I related to...and that's kinda weird considering this was written in the 1850s during the California gold rush. The thing that I definitely appreciated the most - and probably one of the main reasons why it's so acclaimed - is the message about God's undying love for sinners. I usually steer away from thinking about these things but the Biblical messages are constantly present and interweaved throughout the story and it's not something that sits lightly on your chest when you're trying to grasp the magnitude of that God-given love it's trying to illustrate.

To wrap it up, here's an accurate and beautiful art portrayal from THEJANARENEE